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the law makes the whole population members of the Church through this rite. It attaches an importance to baptism which does not belong to it, and so perverts the design of the Gospel ordinance, by exalting it entirely above its proper place; and it places the innocent child in a nondescript position to which he is a stranger in the Gospel; thus there can be no natural place for it in the Church of Christ. The very object of a Gospel Church is the promotion of mutual growth in truth, purity, and love; the advancement of Christ's cause on earth, and the salvation of the Christless; to none of which ends a babe can contribute. Then, as Baptist Churches are pure democracies, they cannot deprive a child of the right to choose Christ for himself, for in them all are equal; each member having his own vote in all that concerns their well-being, a responsibility which a child cannot assume. Thus we consider that a Church made up of unregenerate members takes the second step in apostasy. One more distinctive principle of Baptists is:

III. THAT THEY MAINTAIN BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER AFTER THE APOSTOLIC APPOINTMENT BOTH AS IT REGARDS THEIR RELATIONS TO THEMSELVES AS ORDINANCES, AND TO OTHER GREAT GOSPEL TEACHINGS. We use neither of them as a charm, or spiritual amulet to serve the ends of superstition in the supposition that the first can wash away sin, or that the other exerts any moral efficacy on the soul. All the waters of the sea cannot wash away a moral stain from man, nor can all the bread and wine brought from the harvest-fields and vineyards of earth strengthen his immortal soul. We think that the supper should only be celebrated when and where the purpose of its celebration can be properly served. Hence, we take the elements only when the local Church is met 'in one place' as a body, and shun the popish custom of carrying them to the room of the sick, as if they contained salvation, or some magical influence. Christ personally is the healing medicine of the afflicted Christian, and not bread and wine. We, therefore, hold that every idea of sacramental grace is a piece of superstition, to be sacredly discarded. Sacramentarianism is the third step in apostasy. The last distinctive principle of Baptists is:

IV. THAT THEY EARNESTLY OPPOSE ALL CONNECTION OF THE CHURCH WITH THE STATE, AND ALL DISTINCTIONS MADE BY THE STATE AMONGST ITS CITIZENS, ON THE GROUND OF RELIGION. They protest that the State has nothing to do with the control of religion; but that it must give unrestricted religious freedom to all, as their sacred and natural right in the exercise of a free conscience. All true soul-liberty arises in that purity of conscience, which, unbound itself, leaves all other consciences free. Our idea is, that as the untrammeled conscience is the inalienable right of man, he can be made accountable only to God for its exercise. Hence, when any human power proscribes or persecutes man, by putting him under pains or penalties for following his convictions of duty in obeying God, such interference is an usurpation. When a man follows these convictions, he is entitled to the honest respect and love of all; and he is bound to extend the same rights to

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others which he claims for himself. Nay, fidelity to manhood and to God requires us to contend, and if need be to suffer, for this, as the right of others, and to treat those who differ from us in religious opinion and practice, with the respect and love which sacredly honors our own immunities. This holy principle lays the ax at the root of all legal proscription and persecution. The persecution of one Christian by another is the coolest wickedness that can be perpetrated, because it hides under the color of law; and when so-called Christian States inflict martyrdom, they simply inflict cold-blooded murder. Men who kill others against law, generally do so under the impulses of irregular passion. But those who legally put men to death because they cannot conform to their religion, lift up red hands as their only rightful claim to Christian discipleship; for they have methodized homicide under the pretense of a holy regularity. They make piety toward God preside with prayers at the blood-shedding of redeemed men. This State-murder has been steadily dealt out to Baptists by every dominant sect of religion, with scarcely an exception, after allying itself with the State; while our people have insisted on their right to the free exercise of their own faith, and to the freedom of all other men to serve God on their own volition, without dictation from any man.

According to the estimate of Sharon Turner there were at the close of the first century already about 500,000 Christians in the world, and the Scriptures show that they cherished the sacred principles here set forth. These doctrines are still as fresh as ever, and are as soundly reproduced in the Baptists of the nineteenth century as in those of the first. It will now be our business to show how and where they have lived in the intervening centuries, when not an Apostle was left to expound or defend them, but only the Word of God in which they abide, and must live forever. Yet, the question is constantly arising why all Christians do not earnestly strive to go back to the pattern of the Apostolic Churches? Beck forcefully answers this inquiry thus:

It is quietly assumed that the original arrangements of the Church were only possible at that time, and that in later ages they have become impracticable and unsuitable. People have got into the habit of regarding this Scriptural pattern as an ideal that cannot be carried out in practice. But why can we not realize it? Is the cause to be found in the fanatical character of the first period of Christianity, or does it lie in the fact, that the latter progress has proved untrue to the ideal to which the First Age remained true? The latter is the case. The Scriptural Church constitution takes for granted, a society which grows and develops from within by the free faith of those who compose it, and which separates itself from the rest of the community. If doctrine and sacrament must be founded on the divine word, in order to represent and promote true Christianity, this is no less essential also for the constitution and discipline of the Church. The two things cannot be separated, as the history of the great Churches shows, without entailing increasing evil and injury on the Church. The union between doctrine and constitution must take place in accordance with what the divine word represents to have been the rule and the practice from the beginning. This is the only right way to improvement.'4

POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES.

I*

CHAPTER I.

SECOND CENTURY.

T is estimated that at the opening of this century, from two to three hundred Churches had been gathered, some of them thousands of miles apart. When the Apostles died, their authority died with them and they lived only in their writings. Their office did not allow of perpetuation, for they were the chosen witnesses of Christ's life and work, and could not bequeath their oral testimony to others. When these orphaned flocks were left alone in all their humanness, their only directory was the Book by which the Apostles had transmitted their witness and revelations, under the infallible inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No miraculous agency was needed to supplement their writings, and the Awful Volume finished, their twelve thrones were left vacant. Woe to him who makes the Bible a foot stool to climb into their empty seats. For the first time man was left on common ground, with the choice of making the unmixed authority of that book his guide to Christ, or of committing his soul to the lead of uninspired men. This fact alone put the Gospel to its severest test, and made the second century a most solemn period, as Christians had no alternative but to follow the New Book. How, then, did they bear themselves toward the Sacred Oracles?

Eusebius says, that they 'Vied with each other in the preaching of Christ, and in the distribution of the Scriptures.' The Epistle to the Thessalonians was written about twenty years after the crucifixion, and the last of the New Covenant books within fifty years thereafter. Probably Paul's Epistles were first collected into one volume; but within half a century after the death of John, the four Gospels were publicly read in the Churches of Syria, Asia Minor, Italy and Gaul, and all the New Testament books were collected by about A. D. 150. The first translation appears to have been the Syriac, called Peshito (literal), for its fidelity, rendered most faithfully into the common language of the Holy Land. Some think that our Lord's exact language is better preserved in this version than in the Greek manuscripts themselves. J. Winchelaus, who devoted much research to its history, says that it preserves the letter of sacred Scripture truly, and Michaelis pronounces it The very best translation of the New Testament that I have ever read.' It throws a strong light upon the act of baptism in that age. The word which expresses that act is

amad, which the Syriac lexicons define by immerse.' Bernstein uses these words: 'He was dipped, immersed: he dipped or plunged himself into something.' Michaelis declares, that this is the Syriac word which Jesus would use for baptism, in the vernacular language which he spoke. This version was read in the Christian assemblies, with the originals, and where they could not be understood by the people, interpreters rendered them into their mother tongue on the spot. In this age a Latin version was also made, which came into general use immediately. Woide ascribes the translation of the Sahidic, the dialect of Upper Egypt, and the Coptic, that of Lower Egypt, to this period. In the Latin, the word baptizo was rendered by the word tingo, to dip, or immerse; in the Sahidic it was transferred, evidently, because as a Greek term it was well understood in Upper Egypt; and in the Coptic it was translated by the word omas, to immerse or plunge. Latin versions were soon multiplied. Augustine says: "Those who have translated the Bible into Greek can be numbered, but not so the Latin versions; for in the first ages of the Church, whoever got hold of a Greek Codex, ventured to translate it into Latin.' He also decides that the ancient Italic is the most literal of the Latin versions. Irenæus, too, speaks of many barbarous tribes who had 'salvation in their hearts without ink or paper;' alluding to the fact that the unlearned heard the Scriptures read in their own tongue in the public assemblies. These early Baptists decided all questions of doctrine by an appeal to their Sacred Books; being very jealous of forged books, which abounded very early. Tertullian tells us where some of the inspired autographs could be found at that time. The very images,' he says, 'of their voice and person are now recited and exhibited. Do you live in Achaia? There is Corinth. Are you not far from Macedonia? You have Philippi and Thessalonica. Are you nigh unto Asia? There is Ephesus. Or, if you border upon Italy, there is Rome.'1 And as late as the fourth century, Peter of Alexandria said, that: The Gospel of John, written with his own hand, was still preserved and venerated in the Church at Ephesus. Before Christ, spurious Jewish writings purporting to be genuine, appeared; and an attempt was made to incorporate some of these manufactures with certain apochryphal gospels, into the Christian Scriptures, in order to incorporate Jewish notions and pagan philosophy into Christianity. These false lights misled many of the primitive Christians, and have had a shameful influence in shaping current Christian history.

Then, a pernicious tradition began to inject itself into the teaching of the Churches. By tradition is meant, from traditio, that which is delivered orally, and is left unwritten, passing by word of mouth from one to another. Of these, Eusebius first, and Jortin in modern times, call Papias 'the father.' He died A. D. 163, leaving a collection of random, hearsay discourses and sayings of Jesus and his Apostles, called Oracles of the Lord.' He tells us that this was made up of first-hand evidence only, and that he preferred oral testimony to written; hence, he details many ridiculous things, showing that he was fond of gathering up floating stories.

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He says that he made inquiry of the Elders, 'What did Andrew or Peter, Thomas or Philip, or James, say?' Yet, it is doubtful whether he had seen any of them. He had a great dislike for Paul, which Jortin excuses, on the ground that he was 'a simpleton,' and which reconciles us to the loss of his writings, beyond a few fragments. But this turbid stream of tradition widened and deepened, notwithstanding Irenæus says, that the Christians came to salvation: By the will of God delivered to us in writing, to be the foundation and pillar of our faith.'

These Churches were full of missionary energy. The iron republic had first given place to the pen of the lettered empire, and that in turn had opened the way for the conquering cross; for by A. D. 180 the Gospel had reached all its provinces from Britain to the Tigris, and from the Danube to the Libyan Desert, in many cases including the learned and rich. Justin Martyr wrote that there was no race, Greek or barbarian, that either wandered in wagons or dwelt in tents, which did not offer praise to the Crucified. And Tertullian said, in his Apology to the Emperor: We are but of yesterday, yet we have filled your empire, your cities, your islands, your castles, your corporate towns, your assemblies, your very camps, your tribes, your companies, your palace, your senate, your forum; your temples alone are left to you. So great are our numbers, that we might successfully contend with you in open warfare; but were we only to withdraw ourselves from you, and to remove by common consent to some remote corner of the globe, our mere secession would be sufficient to accomplish your destruction, and to avenge our cause. You would be left without subjects to govern, and would tremble at the solitude and silence around you,--at the awful stillness of a dead world.' When Pliny governed Bythnia under Trajan, in the beginning of this period, he complained that 'The sacrifices of the gods were neglected and the temples deserted,' so enthusiastic were the Christians. Their risen Saviour awakened every power of their nature, and they caught his sublime benevolence and self-sacrificing spirit, each regenerated man toiling for him. Their individual names have almost all faded from the pages of history. Of all who lived contemporary with the Apostles and used the pen in the service of Christ we have but six, half the number of their noble chiefs. These are called the Apostolic Fathers, namely: Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp and Papias, of whom the last is doubtful. It would be most interesting to trace the biography of this group of old Baptists, but space will not allow.

A word only may be indulged concerning several of them. CLEMENT Was pastor at Rome A. D. 91–100. He was a man of great administrative ability, and his Epistle to the Corinthians has come down to us. For a long time this was read aloud in the Churches. The Church at Corinth, being divided and in trouble, sought advice of her sister Church at Rome, which answered through its pastor, without command, authority, or fatherly curse. The Church at Rome places herself on a perfect equality with the Church at Corinth, thus: The Church of God